“Mr. Mutwakil Osman?” Rafi asked.
“I went to the Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville, Georgia,” said the man in the apron. “You have any idea what it was like being named Mutwakil in Gainesville, Georgia? My friends call me Donny.”
“Donny Osman?” Peggy laughed.
“Hey, it’s better than Mutwakil, believe me.”
“You’re American?” Rafi asked.
“Born and raised. My parents were both Sudanese. I’ve been living here since 2002.” He shrugged. “Things weren’t the same for Muslims after nine/ eleven.” He grimaced. “Especially if you fly airplanes for a living. I had a little puddle-jumper air transport company. It went bust in six months.” He shrugged again. “Anyway, that’s my story.” He poured the soup into a bowl, carried the bowl over to the little kitchen table and began to eat. “What can I do for you folks?” He eyed them carefully, paying particular attention to Holliday. “Nobody comes here by accident.”
“Archibald Ives,” said Holliday flatly.
“Archie? Sure, what about him?”
“What’s the connection?”
“What business is it of yours?”
“We found your name among his personal effects,” said Holliday bluntly, looking for a reaction.
“Personal effects?”
“He’s dead. Murdered.”
The Sudanese man’s face fell. “I knew it,” he said softly.
“Knew what?” Holliday asked.
“Knew it was trouble right from the start.”
“What was trouble?”
Osman put down his soup spoon and sighed. “I’ve been taking people into dangerous places for years,” he said. “But this time it was
“What whole thing?”
“Matheson for one, Kukuanaland for another.”
“Because of Kolingba?”
“Limbani as well.” Osman nodded.
“What about Limbani?” Rafi asked.
“Limbani’s like Kolingba’s white whale, or Marley’s Ghost from
“Explain,” Holliday said.
“Limbani haunts Kolingba. He got away during the coup and ever since then Kolingba’s been worrying about Limbani organizing some kind of rebel army in the jungle like Fidel and Che. He smokes that iboga stuff or snorts it or eats it or whatever you do and he has visions of Limbani and his hordes coming out of the woodwork like cockroaches.”
“Limbani’s a myth?” Peggy asked.
“Who knows?” Osman shrugged. “The point is, Kolingba’s got patrols of his thugs roaming around in the bush shooting anything on two legs. There’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward for Limbani’s head on a stick.”
“And you took Ives there?” Rafi said.
“Archie seemed like a big boy-was a big boy. I thought he could take care of himself. He said it was his big chance. The strike that he could retire on.”
“Well, he’s retired now; that’s for sure,” said Peggy.
“Where exactly did you take him?” Holliday asked.
“Pretty much the end of the world,” said Osman. “Seven hundred miles southwest of here. Just before the Bahr al-Arab River turns into the Kotto River there’s a little place called Umm Rawq. That’s where I took him. He didn’t tell me where he was going other than down the Kotto for a few days.”
“What’s in this Umm Rawq place?” Holliday asked.
“A fish market, a dock, a store, a village, or what’s left of it.”
“Why Umm Rawq?”
“It’s right on the border and he could rent a boat. That’s the last time I saw him, heading upriver in the local steamer.”
“Was there anybody with him?”
“A guide. A local. I think his name was Mahmoud.”
There was a pause. Finally Peggy spoke. “How exactly did you get him to this Umm Rawq place?”
Osman smiled. He got up from the table, went to the big garage door and pushed it upward. The door rattled along the rails and they saw what was on the other side of the plywood bulkhead.
“I’ll be damned,” whispered Holliday. “She must be fifty years old.”
“Sixty-six,” said Osman proudly. Moored in a waterfilled dock cut into the rear of the barge was a pure white Catalina PBY flying boat, its hull riding easily on the river, its single high wing making the aircraft look like a gigantic graceful bird about to take flight. The triple-bladed black-lacquered propellers on the twin engines gleamed. “I bought her from the South African Air Force nine years ago and flew her up here from Johannesburg.” He stepped out onto the dock and looked up at the aircraft affectionately. The others followed him through the open doorway. “I spent a year refitting her, getting parts and restoring her. She and I have been partners ever since.”
“She’s beautiful,” said Holliday, meaning it. The flying boat was a wonderful piece of history elegantly salvaged.
There was a long silence as the group stood there admiring the aircraft. Far out on the river a Nile sightseeing boat went by, the booming electronic voice of a tour guide echoing over the water.
“This is what you call a Bono moment,” said Peggy.
“A what?” Rafi asked.
Holliday sighed. “I think she means this is a moment of conscience.”
“You’ll have to explain that,” said Rafi. “Pop stars aren’t my forte.”
“It means we’re in a bit of a moral quandary,” said Holliday. “Right now Kolingba and his little crime patch are a bit of a joke. Give him a trillion-dollar mineral find and he won’t be a joke anymore.”
“What are we supposed to do about it?” Rafi said. “I’m here for the archaeology, not a pitched battle.”
“What
“We either do nothing, or we try to find Limbani and make it an equal playing field.” He turned to Osman. “You’ll take us to Umm Rawq?”
“Sure.” Donny Osman nodded. “I’m in.”
“Me, too,” said Peggy.
Rafi sighed. “I just wanted to find King Solomon’s Mines and now I’m going into a war zone.”
10
Konrad Lanz ducked through the oval doorway of the ancient Air Mali Ilyushin Il-18 and stood on the stairs for a second, looking out over the Fourandao airport, officially known as Kolingba International, even though the single cracked concrete runway was less than twenty-five hundred feet long and the bedraggled-looking terminal wasn’t even equipped with radar.
The terminal was a single, squat building made of concrete blocks, a rudimentary tower jutting up from the center of the structure. To the left was a fuel dump, and a small parking lot lay on the right. To the side of the doorway into the terminal Lanz could see something that looked very much like a Soviet BTR-40 armored personnel
